57 Arethusa 45 (2012) 57–77 © 2012 by The Johns Hopkins University Press THE FOX AND THE BEE: HORACE’S FIRST BOOK OF EPISTLES 1 CHRISTOPHER TRINACTY The letter should be strong on characterization (Ƶɜ ȌƪƫƬɜƮ), like the dialogue; everyone in writing a letter more or less composes an image of his own soul. One can indeed see the writer’s character in any other kind of writing too, but in none so clearly as in the letter. Demetrios 2 Horace’s Epistles are a compelling blend of philosophy and poetry wrapped up in a broadly epistolary framework and touching upon a vari- ety of themes (city vs. country, patronage, friendship, etc.). Horace begins this work with a recusatio to Maecenas in which he explains that he has given up writing lyric poetry (“versus et cetera ludicra pono,” Ep. 1.1.10) and that he is concerning himself obsessively ( omnis in hoc sum, 11) with “what is right and appropriate” (quid verum atque decens, 11). 3 In so doing, he is not a convert to any one philosophical school, but plans on going “wherever the wind takes him” (“quo me cumque rapit tempestas,” 15) as he “stores and arranges things to draw upon in the future” (“condo 1 The author thanks the editors and anonymous referees of Arethusa, Robin McGill, and Alex Dressler for their helpful criticism and perceptive observations. 2 De Elocutione 227; trans. Trapp 2003.181. 3 The veracity of the recusatio can be seen as a microcosm for the question of the genuine- ness of the Epistles as a whole. Fraenkel 1957 believed them to be actual letters, a claim that Williams 1968 and most modern critics find dubious. The seriousness of the recusatio itself is open to question (no lyric poetry of any kind from this time forth? in this collec- tion? just a certain type of lyric poetry?; all of these hypotheses have been offered, cf. Freudenberg 2002 for an overview). ARE 45.1 1st proof text.indd 57 ARE 45.1 1st proof text.indd 57 11/21/2011 4:26:30 PM 11/21/2011 4:26:30 PM